


Inheritance

by Yevynaea



Category: Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crossover, Death from Old Age, Dreams and Nightmares, Family, Gen, Magic, One Shot, goc book canon has been thrown out the window
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:18:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: “There must be balance.” The girl takes a stone from the ground, throws it off the cliff, and they both watch it fall until it hits the ground far below. Then she takes another, throws it straight up into the air. It disappears beyond the clouds, and doesn’t come down. “There must be a king.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from yarrayora on tumblr: "Kubo ends up having to claim the Moon Throne after his now mortal grandfather died and changes how things work so he becomes ROTG's Man in Moon"

He only gets eleven more years– for all his pain, for all he did, for all he fought, for all he _lost_ , Kubo only gets eleven more years on Earth. Because at the end of eleven years, Grandfather dies, an old man, frail and tired, and the same night Kubo is visited in his dreams by a girl with familiar moonlight skin, and unfamiliar, seeing, silver eyes.

“You can’t ignore your birthright, Kubo,” she tells him, as they stand together on a cliff overlooking a vast field. She looks young, younger even than he was when his quest first began, and her eyes, although pale as the moon like Grandfather’s blind one, stare at Kubo rather than through him. “You must come home.”

“I am home,” Kubo replies.

“There must be balance.” The girl takes a stone from the ground, throws it off the cliff, and they both watch it fall until it hits the ground far below. Then she takes another, throws it straight up into the air. It disappears beyond the clouds, and doesn’t come down. “There must be a king.”

“Can’t it be someone else?” Kubo asks, and the girl grows into a woman, with a face too much like his mother’s. She smiles softly and cups his face between her hands.

“Destiny leaves little room for choice,” she tells him, abruptly a little girl again. Then she pushes him off the cliff.

Kubo wakes with a gasp, and sees paper smoothing itself out, falling all around him. He already knows what he will see when he looks over at his grandfather’s cot, but the sight of a corpse is no more pleasant for having anticipated its presence.

* * *

The townspeople help him; Kubo has known loss, seen death, but he has never had to prepare a funeral. Grandfather is seen into the spirit world, and Kubo goes back up the mountain. He spends half the night folding origami by hand before he feels exhausted enough to let himself sleep.

The girl is back. The cliff is not. They’re on an island, now, soft sand underfoot and bright, indistinct shapes under the water surrounding them. The girl doesn’t speak, just stares, a calm, quiet sort of fury clear in her expression.

“I don’t want to take his place,” Kubo says, fully aware that he sounds like a petulant child, and not caring very much.

“Your blood is his blood. Your inheritance is his legacy,” says the girl. “Your place is not among humans.”

“I am human,” Kubo reminds her. She is silent for a long time.

“If you care for this world, you must know it needs balance,” she says finally.

“I do care for this world,” Kubo agrees. “That’s why I can’t leave it.”

He wakes between one blink and the next, and his paper is stacked exactly where he left it.

* * *

The next night, they’re in a forest, and the girl is kneeling on the ground, absently twirling a maple leaf between her fingers.

“Guard them,” she says.

“The leaves?” Kubo asks, just to be stubborn.

“Humans. Take your grandfather’s place, claim your birthright–” She doesn’t notice or doesn’t care when Kubo flinches, here– “and use your place above this world to protect it from harm.”

Kubo kneels in front of her, and she drops the leaf, meeting his eyes and not looking away.

“Won’t it get lonely, up there?” He asks her. She only stares.

Kubo wakes.

The sky is still dark when he goes outside, the moon full and bright. He has his mother’s shamisen and his father’s robes (still too big for him, but only just), and a pack full of paper. He feels the draw of the moon’s light as if there were an arrow in his heart, pulling him toward it.

Kubo takes a deep breath, steadying himself. He plucks each string, making sure the notes are right. And then he begins to play. And then he begins to fly.

* * *

(Kubo will, someday, meet a shadow. He will, someday, choose heroes to help him, Guardians to protect his world’s most vulnerable. And finally, finally, after centuries upon centuries of gathering his strength and magic, because someone so human as him cannot travel between the moon and the Earth as easily as his aunts, his grandfather could– he will, someday, come down from the heavens, and look over his chosen with his one still-lonely eye, and the Man in the Moon will smile.)


End file.
